Writer and director Boris Khlebnikov made his feature screenwriting and directorial debut with the internationally successful Roads to Koktebel (2003), which won the Philip Morris Award at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. His next film, Free Floating (2006) was selected for the Venice International Film Festival, and earned him Best Director at Kinotavr in Sochi, Best Film from the Russian Guild of Film Critics and Best Film at the Warsaw International Film Festival. Help Gone Mad (2009) premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival, and four years later he returned to the Berlinale where A Long and Happy Life (2013) screened in competition.
Natalia Meschaninova is a Russian writer, director, producer and cinematographer, working across documentary and narrative films. In 2014 she directed Kombinat, which won the White Elephant award with the Russian Guild of Film Critics and was competing for the Tiger Award at Rotterdam International Film Festival.
The Asia Pacific Screen Academy expresses its respect for and acknowledgement of the South East Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. We pay our respects to the Traditional Owners of country, including the custodial communities on whose land works are created and celebrated by the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. We acknowledge the continuing connection to land, waters and communities. We also pay our respects to Elders, past and present. We recognise the integral role Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and First Nations peoples continue to play in storytelling and celebration spaces.
